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The Shenandoah Valley High School Class of 2016 is producing a fun board game that will raise money for the class and have players tour Shenandoah from the convenience of their homes.

The game is called "Shenandoahopoly," a custom property trading game in the tradition of Monopoly. As with the classic game originally by Parker Brothers and now by Hasbro, players will move their game pieces around the board to properties like Souchuck Lumber, Mrs. T's Pierogies, Lyric Restaurant and others. The four railroad company blocks are not on the board, but there are four borough pizza shops instead.

This will be the second such Monopoly-style game produced in Shenandoah, Back in the mid-1980s, the Polish American Fire Company No. 4 created "The Game of Shenandoah" that had many borough businesses. While some businesses are gone, many others are still in existence, along with some new names.

The project coordinator is English teacher and co-athletic director John Brennan, who is a co-adviser of the 2016 class with Elizabeth Andrefki and Allison Hoffman. Brennan discovered the idea during an Internet search with Google.

"I was trying to come up with something different to raise funds rather than your typical candy or T-shirt sales," he said. "I Googled 'unique fundraising ideas' and it was the first idea that came up. I contacted the company and they sent me a sample game. Less than a week later I saw advertisements for 'Scranton-opoly' and 'Wilkes-Barre-opoly,' so I saw it was something other communities were doing."

Brennan spoke with district public relations coordinator Robert Yudinsky about the idea.

"He knows the community pretty well and we tossed the idea around a bit," said Brennan. "We started to try to get some verbal commitments from so local businesses to see if they would for it."

The company, Pride Distributors Inc., Michigan, included a sample invoice with the game sample to give Brennan and the class an idea of the costs involved. He said the minimum order was 350 games, so that's how the sponsorship levels were determined to pay for the production of the game.

"We weren't accepting any money at all at first," said Brennan. "We just wanted to find out who would commit to this. Most said, 'Absolutely.' They were jumping on the opportunity."

Brennan said the project never got much into a solicitation phase, with sponsors buying spaces, cards and money in less than two weeks. He credited many parents for being supported and getting the sponsorships at businesses where they work or were known by the owners.

"We did not have a real formal plan. There were some businesses who were approached and they asked for a day or so to decide, and when they got back to us, all the spaces were filled," said Brennan. "They asked to be placed on a waiting list in case someone canceled, and some bought patron ads. I can't tell you five people who said no."

There were 28 spaces on the board that sold for $100 and 12 spaces that were $200. The higher cost for the 12 spaces also included being placed on the game box top, so those sponsors will receive twice the exposure.

The "Fate" and "United Way" cards, similar to "Chance" and "Community Chest," were $250 each to sponsor. Deed cards were also $250 to sponsor, and the Shenandoahopoly game money sponsorship was $300, which went to M&T Bank. Patron ads were $50.

Brennan was not aware that a similar game had been produced in Shenandoah previously when he got the idea.

"One of our secretaries, Ann Kayes, mentioned it to me about Polish American doing that," said Brennan. "Our guidance counselor, Melissa Kayes, also brought a copy of it. It was nice to see and to compare and see how the business community has changed."

The deadline to get the material submitted to the company is next week in order to beat a price increase. The games are expected to arrive in March. The price for each game is $20.

"One big difference here with the fundraiser compared to others is that others may be over in about two weeks or a month, while this one will go over months," said freshman Alaina Demalis.

Freshman Marissa Szczyglak said the game will give people who moved away from Shenandoah a chance to see some new businesses and those that are still around.

"One good thing about it is that those who moved out of Shenandoah is they can have something from the place where they were born," said freshman Meghan Artley.

"And it's part of the community, too," said Marissa Szczyglak.

"I think it's neat to have something different as a fundraiser," said freshman Marcella Creasy.

Brennan said that once the shipping costs are determined for mail orders, the game will be posted on the Shenandoah Valley website (www.svbluedevils.org) and the class' Facebook page (Shenandoah Valley Class of 2016).

jusalis@republicanherald.com

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